The background description provided herein is solely for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the illustrative embodiments of the disclosure. Aspects of the background description are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the claimed subject matter.
In the fabrication of pipelines used to convey fluids such as oil and gas, flanged pipeline conduits are connected to each other end-to-end. The flanges on each pipeline conduit typically include multiple bolt openings which are aligned with the bolt openings in the flanges of the adjacent pipeline conduits. Bolts are typically extended through the registering bolt openings and secured with nuts to attach the flanges and the adjacent conduits to each other.
One of the challenges commonly encountered in bolting adjacent pipeline conduits to each other is properly aligning the bolt openings in the flanges of the adjacent conduits with each other to facilitate extension of the bolts through the openings. Accordingly, flange bolt alignment systems and methods which facilitate alignment of bolt openings in the flanges of adjoining conduits to expedite bolting of the conduits to each other is needed.